Brain Fodder

Exposing the Bush Family Evil Empire and exposing other misdeeds against humanity.
WARNING: Some posts may contain language which is unsuitable for minors. Most posts contain concepts which are offensive to Bush-lovers.

Thursday, September 29, 2005

Another Immorality Tale

My previous post was an immorality tale about Christianity. Here is another.

If you follow a particular sect of Trinitarian Christianity (by which I mean that you have God-God and Holy-Ghost-God and Jesus-God and they are all different but yet the same and Jesus-God is the redeemer of your sins) then substitute that sect in the tale below because all of those sects are all equally immoral. If you are not a Trinitarian Christian then pick the Trinitarian sect you dislike most and substitute that in the tale below.

The tale of Joe Minimal, Sister Mary, and Ms Good

Joe Minimal is a Trinitarian Christian (he believes Christ will redeem his sins) of whichever sect you have chosen for this story. He goes to church every Sunday. He does everything the church specifically asks him to. But, like most working-class people under the Bush regime, he is so overstretched (he's working two full-time jobs to support his family and still only barely making ends meet to pay for essentials, let alone luxuries) that he can't volunteer for much in the way of extra church activities. He can't spare the time. He doesn't have any spare money to put on the collection plate (but he does anyway and goes without).

Sister Mary is also of whichever sect you have chosen for this story. If that sect has nuns then she really is a nun. If that sect does not have nuns then the appelation "Sister Mary" is something that has been given to her as being similar to "Mother Theresa." She does good works. She saves lives. She rescues people from poverty. And she preaches her religion to those she has helped. She doesn't make converting to her religion a condition of receiving her help but she tries very hard to make the people she helps convert.

Ms Good is an atheist. She doesn't believe in any supernatural, invisible sky beings. But, like Sister Mary, she does good works. She saves lives. She rescues people from poverty. But she doesn't bring any religion into things.

As it happens, for every life Sister Mary saves Ms Good saves a hundred lives. For every person Sister Mary rescues from poverty Ms Good rescues a hundred people from poverty. I could (since I am the author of this story) state that Sister Mary's religion makes her one hundred times less effective than Ms Good because Sister Mary has to spend so much time praying instead of doing things. I could state that Sister Mary's religion makes her one hundred times less effective than Ms Good because Sister Mary's religion poisons her critical thinking and leads her to bad decisions. Instead I shall simply note that Ms Good is one hundred times more effective than Sister Mary and leave it as an unexplained fact. Perhaps Sister Magdalene, should she appear, would be even more effective than Ms Good and religion or lack of religion is not the determining factor of effectiveness. But in this tale we have only Sister Mary and Ms Good, and Ms Good is a hundred times more effective than Sister Mary for whatever reason.

Sister Mary preaches to all those she helps. She preaches very hard. Even so, only one in ten of those people convert to her sect (some are already of that sect, some are Christians of other sects, some are of other religions, and some simply refuse to convert). Ms Good doesn't preach to anyone, but of those she helps two in one thousand spontaneously decide to convert to the creed that Sister Mary follows (because Sister Mary gets more publicity and so the people Ms Good helps naturally think she's of Sister Mary's sect). So for every ten people Sister Mary helps she gets one convert. For every ten people Sister Mary helps Ms Good helps 1,000 people and two of those convert to Sister Mary's creed. Every day, for each convert Sister Mary gains by her own efforts Ms Good (helping one hundred times more people) ends up gaining Sister Mary's creed two converts. If you were of Sister Mary's creed and wanted to convert as many people as possible you'd do best to give your spare cash to the atheistic Ms Good rather than Sister Mary.

Sister Mary and Ms Good are in a large city about to be presented honours for their humanitarian works. Joe Minimal is one of the security guards at the event. A terrorist detonates a bomb at that event. All three are killed. So where does "Christian morality" decree these three end up?

Joe Minimal, as a devout believer, goes to eternal bliss (akin to a perpetual orgasm but without the wet spot) in Heaven. He may have done the very minimum (not through choice but through circumstance) to get into Heaven but that's where he ends up.

Sister Mary, as a devout believer, also goes to eternal bliss in Heaven. Despite having devoted far more of her life to helping others, despite having converted many thousands to her faith while Joe has converted nobody, she gets nothing that Joe doesn't get. Bliss is bliss, orgasm is orgasm, and eternity is eternity. There is no "bliss premium edition" and nothing can last longer than eternity. All that extra effort but no extra reward. Doesn't sound quite right to me but that's how the system supposedly works.

Ms Good, as an atheist, burns in the fires of Hell for eternity. It doesn't matter that she saved a hundred lives for every life that Sister Mary saved. It doesn't matter that she rescued a hundred people from poverty for every person that Sister Mary rescued. It doesn't matter that each day, for every soul that Sister Mary deliberately converted to her faith that Ms Good happened (through no efforts of her own) to convert two souls to Sister Mary's faith. By anybody's reasoning Ms Good did more for humanity and more for Sister Mary's own faith than Sister Mary did.

You want to call that morality? Seriously? If you are a Trinitarian Christian I expect you do. I have had Christians tell me that because Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh converted to Christianity that despite the deaths he supposedly caused (his truck bomb could not have done the damage, which was caused by explosives planted inside the building) that it was only right that he go to Heaven despite his previous evil acts. Doing evil then converting to Christianity is a ticket to Heaven; doing good as an atheist is a ticket to Hell. That is so moral...

As the author of the story I have a surprise twist in the ending. When the bomb went off, Joe Minimal was killed instantly (so as a believer he went to Heaven). When the bomb went off, Ms Good was killed instantly (so as an atheist she went to Hell). Sister Mary, although mortally wounded, survived for a few minutes. As she looked at the carnage, at the dead bodies, at the children in the audience who were blown into a bloody pulp, she wondered how God could permit such a thing. In her final few minutes, Sister Mary lost her faith. If she had survived yet another minute she might have rationalized it all away and regained her faith, but she died wondering how God could be so cruel as to permit such a thing to happen.

All Sister Mary's faith over her many years of her life and all her good works over decades of life count for nothing. For a couple of minutes of doubt at the end of her life, her previous lifetime of faith and good works are wiped out and she burns in Hell for eternity. Burn, baby, burn.

If you think that is moral then you are a sick fuck with shit for brains who believes in a supernatural, invisible sky being with the morals of a crystal meth addict who was an evil fuck even before he became addicted. You tell me that because I am atheist I am destined for Hell. But if you're right that there is a God (you're not) and that's how God really works then however physically unpleasant Hell may be at least I'll be comforted by not having to spend an eternity adoring a sick fuck like your God.

Seriously. If God exists and really does work that way then your God has the attributes you give to your anti-God you call Satan. The evil nature that you ascribe to Satan could come up with a scheme like that but a God of love could not. Good person who does not believe goes to Hell; bad person who does believe goes to Heaven. Sounds like something only Satan could come up with in order to reward the bad people who believe in him.

Have fun when you pray to the Easter Bunnythe Tooth FairySanta ClausMumbo Jumbo, Lord of the Congo God and ask him/her/it to resolve the doubts my post raised in your mind.

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

An Immorality Tale

As an atheist, I find myself attacked by both the religious right and the religious left as being "immoral" and "a tool of Satan." So here is just one of the things that makes Christianity totally immoral.

I'm going to construct the example tale around Catholicism, although it can be translated to almost all other creeds of Christianity (and I'll explain how after the example tale) not because I am a former Catholic or know more about it than other creed but simply because it makes the point more strongly and because this particular tale has strong resonances with known facts about Catholicism. For Catholics who want to chime in about Purgatory, that too comes after the example tale because it would complicate matters too much to work it into the tale (Purgatory makes no significant difference to the immorality involved). The tale will be told using the very common literary convention "third-person, universal" in which the author knows what the characters are thinking (it does not escape me that, ironically, in the real world such a perspective would be available only to God). Oh, and if anyone thinks this example is immoral, after the tale I'll briefly discuss "indulgences" (which are so immoral and sick that Bush and Cheney would be proud had they come up with the idea).

An Immorality Tale

An adolescent Catholic, getting those sexual urges experienced by all adolescents (but which are deemed sins by Catholicism) realizes that he is sexually aroused not by women, or even adult men, but by male children. He is truly shocked and prays devoutly that he will be aroused by women (remember, third-person univeral perspective, this is what he really wants, not a lie he hopes God will believe). However hard he prays, his sexual orientation (which disgusts him), remains.

Since he is very intelligent all his family have urged him to become a priest, he decides to enter the seminary because he thinks that being a priest will help him overcome his sinful thoughts. He knows that (according to Catholic doctrine) priests are not granted any special dispensation by God when they sin but are treated equally, so that is not why he enters the seminary. He knows that (according to Catholic doctrine) the prayer of a priest is no more powerful than that of anyone else, so he knows that being a priest will not make it more likely that God will remove his sinful thoughts. His reason for entering the seminary is that he hopes that by being constantly immersed in the symbols of his religion (not just the various crap in a typical Catholic household but a whole churchful of the stuff) he will always be reminded that buggering choirboys is a sin.

You might believe that most, if not all, Catholic choirboy-buggerers become priests purely and simply so that they can tell their choirboys that unless they drop their pants, bend over, and let the priest slip them a length that God will punish them for eternity. I suspect that most Catholic choirboy-buggerers have no faith themselves and join the priesthood precisely because of the power it gives them over gullible children (if they weren't gullible they wouldn't believe in an invisible friend called God). But third-person universal again: this particular person really does believe that being immersed in the church will allow him to overcome his inner demons and he really isn't joining up just so he can tell gullible choirboys to bend over.

Many years go by and (as I'm sure you've already guessed) eventually he succumbs to temptation. He tells the choirboy that it is God's will. He tells the choirboy that if he doesn't do what he is told then God will burn him in Hell forever. He tells the choirboy that if he tells anybody what has happened then God will burn him in Hell forever. I.e., typical Catholic choirboy-buggering stuff. And for the many sins he has committed, he gets a ticket straight to hell. He lied. He abused his position. I'm not sure if he broke his vows of celibacy because they were introduced to stop priests and bishops having kids that would inherit church lands, but his intercourse could not result in children so maybe the Vatican doesn't count that as breaking his vows of celibacy. He had sex with a male, but I'm not sure that counts either because the Old Testament says that men should not have sex with men, not that they should not have sex with male children. But the lying is enough, as is the abusing his position. "Go directly to Hell. Do not pass Heaven. Do not collect 200 bliss points."

But, afterwards, he really regrets what he has done (third-person universal, remember). This is not the post-coital angst many people feel (I've never felt that, I've always felt happy and relaxed after orgasm, and reached for the cigarettes, but many people do feel it). He really does genuinely regret what he did. And it's not because he fears it means he will burn in Hell for eternity for doing it. He knows what he did was wrong and that he did it in a moment of weakness and that he wishes he were a stronger person (do I need to remind you about third-person universal). This is a sincere regret, as per Catholic doctrine.

So he goes to his Confessor and admits all. He is told to say seven "Hail Mary"s (or whatever) and that's it. His sins are forgiven by God. If he'd been lying about regretting it (I already told you that he isn't lying) his sins would not be forgiven. But because he is sincere his sins are forgiven. Debt cancelled. He has his ticket back to Heaven again (possibly via a stop in Purgatary, which I will cover after the end of this tale). He is once more destined for eternal bliss (as far as I can tell, "eternal bliss" is something like "perpetual orgasm" but without the bodily fluids and you don't need Viagra or cocaine to make it last as long as you want).

Ashamed of his weakness, he vows never to bugger another choirboy. The months go by and eventually, of course, he succumbs again. Once more he has a ticket straight to Hell. Once more he sincerely regrets what he did. Once more he confesses. Once more his ticket to Heaven is restored.

As time goes by the interval between buggering choirboys becomes less and less. As time goes by the number of choirboys he buggers every week becomes more and more. Each time, though, he sincerely regrets his weakness (third-person universal, he really, really does). Each time, though, he goes to his Confessor and God forgives his sins (he's racking up the Purgatory miles, but they're trivial, as I will explain later).

There are so many choirboys being buggered that some of them complain to their parents. Only to be punished (wrongly) for telling lies about a Catholic priest. But eventually one buggered choirboy convinces his parents that he is not lying. They go to court. The priest, prior to giving his testimony, swears on the bible before God that he will tell the truth, but he is lying his fucking arse off when he swears the oath. He perjures himself throughout the whole case. But his Bishop (who is also his confessor) also perjures himself by giving the priest an alibi. The buggered choirboy loses the case and the choirboy-buggering priest wins the case.

The choirboy-buggering priest (and, of course, the Bishop) get a ticket straight to Hell not just for lying but for swearing before God that they will tell the truth and then lying. But you know by now what comes next. The priest sincerely regrets those lies, goes to Confession and says a few "Hail Marguaritas Marys" and his ticket to Heaven is restored.

The buggered choirboy is disowned by his parents for lying about a Catholic priest and thrown out onto the streets. He loses his faith in Christianity because he has been physically abused by a paedophile and abused in a court of law by the Catholic hierarchy. He has never done any harm to anybody. One day, sleeping in his cardboard box under a bridge, he freezes to death. Because he lost his faith, he goes straight to Hell. No argument, no mitigating circumstances: if you don't believe at the point of death no matter what the reason then it's an eternity in Hell for you.

That is Christian "morality" for you. The criminal gets eternal bliss; the victim gets eternal punishment.

My ethical standards are not what they could be. And I don't always manage to live up to them, loose as they are. But what the Catholic standards of "morality" permit as acceptable behaviour make me vomit.

Judaism (I am not of Jewish descent nor have I ever followed the Jewish faith) has a requirement that at least once a year, on Yom Kippur (the "Day of Atonement") one must atone to God for one's sins to God. And before one can atone for one's sins to God one must atone (make restitution) for one's sins to one's fellow man (i.e., if you've ruined some kid's life by buggering him you have to make it better). Actually, according to Judaism you must only atone to your fellow Jew (you can atone to Gentiles but because they are not required to atone to you then you do not have to). And Judaism is almost as immoral (by my atheistic standards) as Christianity, but not quite because Judaism requires you to make amends to the person you have harmed for the harm you have caused.

Other Creeds

Only Catholicism (and the variants such as Anglicanism) have confession. So if you belong to one of the Protestant creeds you could belive this does not apply to you. Most Protestant creeds, however, have some version of being "reborn" or "baptised" or whatever. In some creeds no matter how evil you are you can always be "reborn" in Jesus and wipe out the debt. In other creeds being baptised means that you literally cannot sin, therefore anything you do that appears to be sinful actually isn't because Jeebus wouldn't allow you to do anything that is sinful. In other creeds being baptised means you literally cannot sin and therefore no matter what you do, no matter how evil, it isn't really because Jeebus has given you carte blanche to kill your father or have sex with your mother or rape your sister because you can't sin once you are baptised.

Purgatory

According to the Babbel Bible, you are not allowed to take anything away or add anything to it. A lot of Catholic doctrine adds to the Bible. In particular, Catholic doctrine adds the concept of "Purgatory" (because a lot of what the New Testament says would be sickening without a Purgatory). There are many reasons for entering the Purgatory Zone (such as being stillborn before a priest can sprinkle some holy water over you), but one is for being an evil choirboy-buggering priest who somehow manages to be sincere when saying "I really, really, really regret ramming my dick hard up that choirboy's arse and coming like a steam train around a mountain".

Eternity is a long fucking time. Compared to eternity, a human lifetime is but the blink of an eye. Compared to eternity, a million human lifetimes is but the blink of an eye. Think of the largest number you can. Double it. Double it again. Now multiply it by a gazillion. Compared to eternity, that number is but the blink of an eye. So our hypothetical Catholic priest spends a trillion years being punished in Purgatory - compared to an eternity of bliss (which is like a perpetual orgasm but without the wet spot) that is but the blink of an eye.

Oh, and then there's the matter of how you can escape Purgatory. Well, you can escape it by doing "good deeds" for the (Catholic) church. What constitutes a "good deed"? Giving a fuck of a lot of money to the Vatican counts as a "good deed." Being a Catholic priest counts as a "good deed."

Indulgences

Indulgences were the final insult that triggered the Protestant revolution and enraged Martin Luther.

As you've seen above, you can do despicable things then go into the Catholic "sorry box" (known more formally as a "confessional") and say "forgive me, father, for I have sinned" and get away (as far as God is concerned, if God exists and if God behaves as Catholics say He does) Scott-free. But the rich and powerful (really the two are opposite faces of the same coin: if you're rich then you can have power and if you have power then you can be rich) aristocracy had problems. They had urges to kill their fathers, or rape their mothers, or have sex with their sisters on any day of the week. Between committing the vile act and going to confession (after which the vile act was forgiven) they might die for various reasons (ill health, eldest son wants you out of the way, the clap from the whore you screwed a few months ago, a duel, etc.) which was rather worrying. They wanted, like Bush and Cheney, to be evil fucking bastards while escaping the consequences.

If you are a decent person then do a google search on "indulgences" and be prepared to vomit. Then compare "indulgences" to "confession" and be prepared to vomit. Then compare "confession" to "I am saved and therefore cannot sin" and be prepared to vomit.

Do you BELIEVE in the power of JEEBUS?

Of course, you should not google about "indulgences" if you believe in an imaginary, invisible, super-powered sky being who punishes you when you are bad and do not wish to learn that you have been deceived. I believed in an invisible super-powerful sky being when I was a kid. That super-powerful invisible, imaginary sky being took note of everything I did. He knew when I was good and I was bad. He balanced his books once a year (not on Yom Kippur but another date) and treated me accordingly.

Once a year I had firm, tangible, substantial, physical proof of this superbeing's existence. Once a year, Santa left presents at the end of my bed. When I was six, I realized that, despite the physical evidence, Santa didn't exist. I was five when I realized that God was another fucking tooth fairy, because God didn't leave any presents at the end of my bed.

Another Time

When I have more time on my hands and less wine to drink I'll expand on all those points. Wait for the tale of Sister Sarah...

Meanwhile, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny have as much evidence of their existence as does Jahweh, God, Christ, Allah, Krishna, etc, It's all in a book written hundreds or thousands of years ago. I expect you are so upset at what I've written that you're going to tell me that I'm wrong because God speaks to you. If so, you don't even have the beginnings of the nervous system of a nematode (google for it) that will warn you that I will rip the fucking crap out of you for expressing that sentiment. It's not "did I fire five shots or six" but "are you talking total fucking crap. C'mon, punk, make my day.

Hint to aspiring punks: facts and logical deduction are an absolute necessity if you wish to prove me wrong. Not being as fucking thick as rancid fucking bullshit would be an advantage.

Thursday, September 22, 2005

You know how it goes...

You know how it goes when you run a small business and take pity on the local village idiot. He's middle-aged but mentally he's about 6 or 7. He's mentally retarded. A 'tard. In fact, he's so bad most people call him a "fucktard" or a "fuckwit." But you think nobody is without merit and everybody deserves some dignity so you give him a makework job where he can't do any damage and tell him he's a manager and let him pretend he's running the business (and even go so far as to tell your other employees that he's the COO) so he feels good about himself. And although he takes six-hour lunchbreaks every day you don't complain because at least that means he's only making a mess of the trivial things you give him to do for two hours a day.

Anyway, he's not a bad guy. Even though some people blame him for all the pet cats that end up with their throats cut and there's the inexplicable coincidence that he talks about some cat and a week later its throat gets cut. And then there are those shotgun killings. There is no evidence that this 'tard was the murderer but nor can he ever provide independent witnesses as to his whereabouts at the time of the shootings. But he can't be a bad guy because he's eager to please and he makes you laugh with the things he says. Even though ever since you took him on there has always been a discrepancy between the amount of petty cash you should have and the amount you actually have, and the actual amount is always lower than it should be.

The problem comes when you have to go into hospital without notice because of heart problems (which you conceal from your employees by saying you were buying another house in another state). That would be OK because your number two can take charge. But your number two gets hospitalized with kidney stones. That would be OK because your number three can take charge. Except your number three decided she wanted a holiday so she could buy some expensive shoes and take in a stage show.

And even that would be OK, except there's a crisis at work. When the 'tard finally gets back from his six-hour lunchbreak he slowly (oh, so slowly) comes to realize there's a problem (mainly because all your other employees are running around screaming that there's a problem). At first he does nothing, waiting for you to take charge. But people tell him you're buying a new house so he does nothing waiting for your number two to take charge. But people tell him your number two is in hispital so he still does nothing, waiting for your number three to take charge. But people tell him your number three is on vacation. Slowly it dawns upon him that his job title is "manager." So he takes charge. And somehow, in the process of trying to fix the problem, burns your business to the ground and several of your employees die in the fire.

You get the insurance payout and rebuild your business. And, just so that the 'tard doesn't think you blame him for burning the old one down, you continue to employ him as before. And then another problem comes up, very similar to the last one. And now you, your number two and number three tell all the other employees that this time the 'tard is prepared and ready to deal with the problem and that this time he'll get it right. But all you achieve by this is to remind your employees just how badly the 'tard fucked up the last time and make them worry that he'll fuck up just as badly this time. So they all quit and walk out before he sets the place on fire again because they don't want to die in the fire.

Bush is that fucktard. His Boss, the number two and number three are Dick "Crashcart" Cheney, Karl "Evil piece of shit" Rove and Condi "Lies 'R' Us" respectively. The three real bosses were unavailable when Katrina hit and Bush was on yet another extended vacation. When he came back he finally got the idea that he ought to do something about things but only fucked them up even more. And now Cheney, Rove and Rice are telling us that with Hurrican Rita this time Bush the fucktard will get it right.

Usually people believe their spin. But this time all they're doing is reminding people just how badly Bush fucked up with Katrina. People understand that "This time he'll get it right," whether he does or not, means "Last time he totally fucked up." And that can only be a good thing, because people need to remember how badly he fucked up at the mid-term elections and vote out those Republican bastards (and a few DINOs) in Congress who refuse to criticise Bush.

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Bush is like a slinky

This joke is not original to me (I can only wish I were that funny). I don't know who the original author was because I received it as part of a long chain of jokes passed by e-mail. I'd never heard it before, but for all I know it appeared on national TV (I don't watch TV). The original was phrased "Some people" but I tweaked it.

Bush is like a slinky: he doesn't do anything useful but you laugh like hell if you see him tumble down stairs.

Wednesday, September 07, 2005

The Legal Foundation of the US

As the months go by, increasing numbers in America come to realize that disastrous, corrupt, evil shits control the White House and Congress. As more details come out about the total disdain of Bush, FEMA head Brown, et al. that number is going to increase even more.

The problem is, will Congress impeach Bush? They're starting to realize that as Bush's popularity tanks that continuing to support him in any way could cost them a lot of votes. However, the Republicans also know that Diebold and the other electronic voting machine companies are on their side. Unless there is a big swing against a congresscritter they're going to rig the vote and blame discrepancies on polling errors. And given how blatant they are with their corrupt ways, it would take a seriously big swing to convince them that they couldn't get away with it. Hell, they're that fucking evil they'd probably do it anyway, because what can people do about it. So it's by no means certain that Congress would impeach even if 90% of the US were begging them to do so.

The Grand Jury investigating the Plame outing is rumoured to have considerably widened its scope and is investigating various criminal acts of many senior administration officials (possibly including Bush and Cheney). It is also suspected that Fitzgerald has advised the jury of its full powers (the ability to act on its own whims and not be limited by the prosecutor in what they look at) in case he is removed and replaced by some pro-Bush puppet. So it's possible that a "terrorist" attack will hit the building where the Grand Jury sits, killing all members and destroying all records. More likely is that Bush will just pre-emptively pardon everyone under investigation because these evil fuckers really are that blatant.

So what's left? There is one ultimate recourse. For use only where all other means of addressing grievances fail. It is described in the legal foundation of the US. The Constitution is the "supreme law of the land" but without this foundation the Constitution itself would be deemed illegal. That foundation is the Declaration of Independence. It was written after the continuing depredations of an insane dictator called George finally became too much to bear. Now that the US is struggling under the continuing depredations of another insane dictator called George is it time to take a look at this document in order to learn what might become necessary.

Some may quibble about me calling the Declaration the legal foundation of the US. But it most certainly is. The acts of rebellion were illegal under the (British) laws imposed upon the colonies. In fact they were (and still are) considered illegal by most countries. And because, at that time, most countries were ruled by kings, even Britain's enemies would have been reluctant to stand by as the colonies rebelled lest their own suppressed populace get ideas. So it was necessary to create a legal construct that justified the rebellion as an extra-ordinary reaction to extreme misrule (other kings could relax unless their own rule was as bad as George's).

On to an analysis of the pertinent sections of that hallowed document.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

If your government is a fucked-up bunch of corrupt, evil bastards, you have the right to change it. In a functional democracy you can do that by voting but, of course, when a fucked-up bunch of corrupt, evil bastards have taken control then voting isn't going to work.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

You shouldn't embark on this course of action lightly. But the founders had extensively studied history and knew that people put up with a hell of a lot of shit before they wake up. And this is the case today: it has taken a lot of Bush evilness to wake up enough Republicans that now over 50% of the US thinks Bush is a disaster. The scary thing is that it's only around 55% and not the 99.9% that it should be, thanks to Fox and NBC (owned by General Electric, which makes fuckloads of money supplying all those bombs that were dropped on Fallujah).

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

"Long train of abuses and usurpations"? Check.

"Reduce them under absolute Despotism"? Check.

It is the "people's right" and their "duty" to "throw off such Government." You don't just have the right as American people to get rid of the smirking chimp, it is your duty.

The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.

Substitute "president" for "King" and "United States" for "Great Britain" and this still applies.

[Long list of specific grievances omitted. Replace them with your own grievances about this insane, evil, corrupt chimp called George.]

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Some of the bolder Democrats in Congress have tried to get redress for blatant, corrupt, evil acts but have been smacked down by Hastert and Delay (or their underlings in various committees). They have written letters of complaint to the President that were completely ignored. Not a "the President understands your concerns but feels they are unreasonable." Not even a blow-off "tough titty." Just a refusal to respond.

Obviously, the Declaration was written by that body called Congress, which declared independence from Britain. Now the tyranny is not by the British King and his lickspittle Parliament but the US President and his lickspittle Congress. But the principle is the same in either case:

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

The only way the founders could "alter or abolish" the tyrannical regime that oppressed them, and "institute new Government" was by rebellion. A war of the people against the tyrannical rulers. The founders knew that there was a possibility that the US Government would be corrupted from within because it had happened many times throughout history (read the Federalist Papers). That's why the First Amendment includes the right to "bear arms." An uprising by armed citizens was able to defeat the British. An armed uprising by Vietnamese was able to defeat the US. An armed uprising by armed citizens of Afghanistan was able to defeat Soviet invaders. The current armed uprising by Iraqis will surely defeat the US. Even if the US military sides with Bush (by no means certain because the majority of them are as disgruntled with Bush as everyone else is) they could not prevail against an armed uprising. Of course, in some countries (such as Nazi Germany) the people just went along with the fascist takeover because it was too much hassle to do anything about it (and I have a horrible feeling the US will go the same way).

This is very much a last resort. You exhaust the legal means first because you are not as corrupt and evil as your enemy (if, in order to avoid your enemy beating you and imposing upon you that which you think is evil, you have to adopt those tactics of your enemy that make him evil in order to defeat him, then your enemy has defeated you). You try to avoid it because unless those who support armed rebellion vastly outnumber those who do not, there will a lot of bloodshed.

As I said, very much a last resort. One to be used only when all other legal recourses have failed. But it is a legal recourse (or else the United States is an illegal entity) of last resort. One that must be kept in mind if all else fails. I hope it doesn't become necessary and that impeachment or Grand Jury indictment is all it takes to expunge this evil.

Friday, September 02, 2005

Bush Administration "Incompetence"

[Amended on Tuesday September 06. Minor corrections, some clarifications and expansions, anda new section on "N'awleans World (at the end of the post).]

As yet another Bush Administration disaster hits the people of the US I see intelligent people blaming this administration for incompetence. That is just not the case (or at least not to anything like the degree they believe). And to understand why this disastrous (for the bulk of the US) administration is not incompetent you have to understand their true objectives and how those objectives differ from yours.

Imagine that you take your car in to be serviced and the mechanic "accidentally" sets the gas tank alight and the car is a total write-off. From your perspective, with the objective of getting the car serviced, the mechanic is totally incompetent. However, the mechanic has heard a (false) rumour that you've been screwing his wife so his objective is to fuck you over and make you believe it was an accident due to his incompetence.

Yes, if the Bush administration actually meant any of their campaign promises and the stuff they keep spouting (other than, of course, giving as much money as they can to their obscenely rich cronies) then you would be entitled to believe that they were well-meaning but incomptent. But if there's one thing we've learned it's that Bush lies about everything (unless it's giving even more money to his rich cronies). There is not a spark of humanity in any of the senior figures in the administration, it's all about stealing from the poor to give to the rich. And in that respect they have been fairly competent (they could have stolen more and upset fewer people had they been good con-men, but they are achieving their objectives). To quote from advice during an earlier scandal that nearly resulted in impeachment: follow the money.

9/11

Take, for example, the apparent gross negligence over the warnings about 9/11. Nobody could ever have imaginged aircract being used as missiles, not even if they'd seen Tora, Tora, Tora, or the pilot episode of The Lone Gunman, or seen the anti-aircraft batteries protecting Bush, Rice et al. at a G8 summit in Greece only months beforehand. Bullshit! On the very day it happened, Cheney was personally in command of at least one exercise simulating that very event. But then look at what they gained:

Bush got a much needed boost in his plummeting popularity ratings.

Bush's rich cronies at the Union Oil Company of California (Unocal) got the trans-Afghan pipeline contract the Taleban had recently reneged on. That pipeline was a vital link to what was estimated at the time to be around $5 trillion in oil reserves in the Caspian Sea Basin.

Ken "Kenny Boy" Lay needed that pipeline desperately because of a white-elephant power-plant he had built, and was contracted to run for a fixed cost, in India. Had the pipeline come along in time to provide cheap natural gas to India then "Kenny Boy" might have been able to paper over the cracks long enough to steal even more Enron money.

The Republicans got the excuse to ram home the inappropriately-named USA PATRIOT Act which tramples over civil liberties and allows them to act against anyone who might expose their crookedness.

Dick Cheney's old company Halliburton (to which he still has proven financial ties despite denying them) got gigantic no-bid quartermastering and reconstruction contracts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Not only that, Halliburton didn't even do an honest job, inflating prices so high they're beyond credibility. Not only that[squared], Halliburton actually charged those vastly-inflated prices for goods and services they did not supply. Oh, and the Halliburton subsidiary KBR was implicated as a go-between in the CIA's smuggling of opium from Afghanistan to fund black ops like Iran/Contra so is probably doing so again.

An excuse to invade Iraq for oil. Something that had been on the plans since 1992 when Under-Secretary of Defense for Policy Paul Wolfowitz drafted a strategy report for Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney suggesting that the US needed to invade Iraq and the rest of the Middle East to steal the oil (it was more politely phrased than that but that's what it boiled down to). This was a plan that would be brought up again by Zalmay M. Khalilzad in 1995. You don't recognize the name? He was formerly Chief Consultant to the aforementioned Unocal. After the US invaded Afghanistan he was made Special Envoy to Afghanistan. After the US invaded Iraq he was made Special Envoy to Iraq. I think you can figure out who will be appointed Special Envoy to whichever country Bush next invades for oil.

Various neocons popped up over the years espousing the same thing. In 1997 the neocon thinktank Project for a New American Century was formed. Key figures included Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, James Woolsey, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Bill Kristol, James Bolton, Zalmay M. Khalilzad, William Bennett, Dan Quayle, and James Ellis (JEB) Bush . All people who are, or have been, either been key figures in, or exerted powerful influence upon, the Bush administration. In 1998 PNAC tried (and failed) to convince Bill Clinton to invade Iraq and depose Hussein even if he couldn't get the full support of the UN Security Council (where else have we heard of that plan?)

In 1999 at a speech to the London Institution of Petroleum, Dick Cheney speaking of the impending shortfall between demand and supply of oil stated that:

[...]the Middle East, with two-thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost is still where the prize ultimately lies.

In 2000 PNAC released a "white paper" which was almost identical with the administration's strategy plan adopted after 9/11. Pre-emptive strikes. Ad-hoc coalitions but a willingness to act alone if necessary. Military imperialism, with a view to dominating natural resources (i.e., oil).

Can you imagine that? These people have been having wet dreams about invading Iraq for its oil since 1992 and then on September 11th 2001, because of their own apparent negligence and incompetence they were lucky enough to get their dream come true with an excuse to invade Iraq. Well, you might not believe it if you follow the money.

Oh, and here's a very interesting phrase from that PNAC white paper:

The process of transformation [of the US military into a gang of invaders supporting the theft of oil] is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalysing event - like a new Pearl Harbor.

In case your memory has let you down, 9/11 was only the second attack by an enemy upon US soil. The first attack was Pearl Harbor. Both attacks were unannounced by the perpetrators although in both cases there were very strong indications of impending attack. The number of casualties were approximately the same in those two attacks. It was for these reasons that 9/11 was widely referred to as "A second Pearl Harbor." A new Pearl Harbor. The sort of event these neocons dominating the Bush administration were yearning for so they'd have an excuse to invade Iraq for oil.

So because of their "incompetence" the very sort of event they predicted would be necessary to make their dreams come true happened and their wet dreams actually came true. And they've convinced most people that at worst they were incompetent and at best it was their underlings in the CIA who were incompetent. Follow the fucking money.

The WTC

This deserves to be dealt separately from 9/11 itself because the targets of the attack could have been any high-rise or cherished building. The Sears Tower. The Empire State Building. The Capitol. The WTC was not chosen randomly by some crazed arab.

The twin towers had never run at a profit. You'd think that if the Rockefeller's (who were really behind the cut-out organizations) couldn't run them at a profit then nobody could. You'd have to be damned confident of your business skills (or incompetent) to think that you could. And yet just seven weeks before 9/11, Larry Silverstein bought them. By coincidence, that was the time the Pentagon were drawing up firm (not provisional) plans to invade Afghanistan even though they had no reason to do so at that time and world opinion (and international law) would have been against them.

The original owner of the twin towers didn't have insurance against acts of terrorism. So the Rockefellers were really lucky that Silverstein (whether supremely confident in his business acumen or supremely incompetent) came along. Had Silverstein not bought the towers, the Rockefellers would have made a heavy loss. Silverstein had the foresight to take out insurance against acts of terrorism.

Now here's where you have to question if Silverstein was a genius or an incompetent. If you're going to buy an expensive property, particularly one nearing the end of its design life, you'd get a survey done. You'd check the construction plans, you'd get the building surveyors in, the whole works. But Silverstein clearly did not do that.

How can we know this? Well, remember the outrage about Bush forcing the EPA to lie and say the air was safe to breathe when it wasn't? Once again he showed that he values monied interests more than the health and safety of those who aren't obscenely rich. One of the reasons the air wasn't fit to breathe was that it was full of asbestos. That asbestos came from the twin towers, which were among the last buildings in NYC to use asbestos in their construction before it was outlawed.

What difference does that make? The normal way of demolishing a high-rise is with a controlled explosive demolition. It's quick and it's cheap. A few experts spend a week or two going over the plans and placing explosives. You've probably seen films of this type of demolition on TV. The building collapses in on itself very quickly and almost all of the large debris is contained within its own "footprint." If you haven't seen a controlled explosive demolition you have almost certainly seen the collapse of the WTC towers, which looks remarkably similar.

The authorities would not have permitted a controlled explosive demolition of those towers precisely because of the asbestos it would release. Demolition of those towers would take many, many men. They would all have to be wearing airtight suits. They would have to work their way slowly down from the top using hand-held power tools. The section they were working on would have to be encased in a gigantic balloon-like covering with very powerful pumps sucking air in and passing it through gigantic filters so that no asbestos particles escaped. The airtight suits, the balloon-like covering and the filters would all have to be thoroughly decontaminated on at least a daily basis. Expensive enough that even the Rockefellers, with all their vast wealth, would wince at the cost.

Yet Silverstein was so "incompetent" he either never looked at the building plans or had a survey done or thought that in the decades (at most) those buildings would last before their structural integrity could no longer be trusted and they'd have to be demolishd he could make enough money to pay for the demolition costs. From buildings that even the Rockefellers couldn't run at a profit, he was going to make enough profit to cover those immense demolition costs in (at most) a few decades and still walk away having made more profit than he could have made in interest had he put the money in a bank (either that or he is supremely incompetent).

So weren't the Rockefeller's lucky that Silverstein was so incompetent? And wasn't Silverstein lucky that the Bush administration were so incompetent that 9/11 happened despite all the warnings?

There are some surprising twists to the tale.

The fires in the twin towers were not that fierce: there was a lot of black smoke indicating incomplete combustion and low temperature. A firefighter in the South Tower could see the seat of the blaze and said it would only need a couple of water lines to deal with it.

The South Tower, where the angle of impact meant most of the fuel burned in a giant fireball outside the building collapsed in half the time of the North Tower. Imagine that. The less fuel, the hotter the fire burns and the more quickly it can cause the destruction of a building. Osama bin Laden is an evil fucking supergenius. He not only conceived of using aircraft and missiles when wunderkind Condi Lies 'R' Us could not, he invented homeopathic fire: the less you have of it, the greater the effect. With this homeopathic fire he could light a match and turn the earth into a cloud of vapour, because the less you have the greater the effect.

The fires were dying down, as evidenced by the increasing darkness of the smoke (indicating incomplete combustion of the fuel) and therefore cooling, when each tower collapsed. It's obviously another wondrous effect of homeopathic fire: the colder it burns the hotter it is. I don't quite understand that, but it's clearly true. When the steel members were at their hottest the buildings were standing but as the fires cooled and the steel members cooled then the steel members softened and the buildings collapsed. I told you this guy was a supergenius. You can look at all the engineering references about the strength of structural steel and you won't find any mention of this effect. What you will find is that at the highest possible temperature of a fire caused by aviation fuel that constructional steel will still have more than 50% of its strength and that the building codes in NY require structural steel to have a strength of more than 6 times its maximum rated load.

No high-rise of similar construction has ever collapsed because of fire either before or since. Not even the one in Madrid that was recently fiercely ablaze from top to bottom for seventeen hours. Of course, that wasn't a homeopathic fire but just an ordinary fire.

Despite no similar tower before ever collapsing from a fire and architects wanting to examine the remains to see why these buildings behaved so differently, the remains were carted off before any forensic analysis could be made. The steel, which would have been of great interest, was sold off as scrap to smelters in foreign countries.

The contractor in charge of clearing away the remains was Controlled Demolition, Inc.CDI is one of the world's leading companies in demolishing high-rises using controlled explosive demolition. It's only coincidence that the two towers collapsed in a way that looked exactly like a controlled explosive demolition. Of course, if it had been an explosive demolition then CDI would have spotted tell-tale signs and alerted the FBI that something was amiss. Really! To those of you who are thinking "the best way of ensuring that those clearing away the remains don't spot signs of a controlled explosive demolition is to hire the people who set the charges" all I can say is "For shame! How could you think such a thing?"

Many senior figures in Bush's administration were formerly management figures in the oil industy (Condi even had an oil tanker named after her). The Rockefellers made their start in the oil industry (Standard Oil before it got split up) and are still major shareholders in the offshoots of Standard Oil). Most of the hijackers came from Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil producer. The Bushes and the Saudi Royal family have very close ties. Relatives of Osama bin Laden were flown out of the US at a time when all air traffic was grounded.

If I were patient enough I'd go into detail about WTC 7 catching fire for no reason. About how WTC 7 collapsed even though no aircraft hit it. About WTC 7 being used to store evidence about various crimes that were on the point of an investigation re-opening. About WTC 7 holding evidence related to the Oklahoma City bombing. About how US military explosives experts said there is no way the truck bomb could have done that damage to the Oklahoma federal building and that it was a controlled explosive demolition. About how the Oklahoma building contained evidence about the Waco debacle. About how the remains of the Oklahoma building were carted away and buried (with barbed wire and armed guards protecting the burial site) before a forensic examination could be performed. About the company that carted away and buried the remains being Controlled Demolition Inc.

I don't know where the evidence relating to 9/11 is stored, but if it's a high-rise I wouldn't want to live or work in it because "incompetents" in the administration keep choosing to store evidence that might expose their "incompetence" in buildings that crazy terrorists just happen to decide to blow up. Freaky, huh?

Follow the fucking money.

Iraq

Then there is the apparent incompetence in Iraq. This bunch ignored sage advice from the State Department and the Pentagon about keeping the peace after the initial fighting was over. They ignored experts telling them their obligations under the Geneva Conventions to protect necessary infrastructure and instead posted guards to protect only the Oil Ministry and the Secret Police HQ . They illegally violated the Geneva Conventions by torturing prisoners and "incompetently" allowed details of those activities to leak out. The result is an escalating cycle of violence and destruction that will never end for as long as the US remains in Iraq. But look what they gained:

Halliburton, Bechtel and the like are getting new funds every day to repair the oil pipelines that the insurgents keep blowing up.

The large arms manufactures such as General Electric (who own NBC, incidentally, and it's just coincidence that NBC never says anything bad about the war in Iraq) and the Carlyle Group (George HW Bush is a shareholder and used to be a consultant - it was almost like he had a hotline to the pResident) are making money hand over fist.

The big oil companies said before the war that they didn't want a war in Iraq, that it was the worst thing they could conceive of because it would likely decrease global oil production at a time that it was only just meeting demand. Those same oil companies have recently reported record profits, made because they can charge high prices in order to ensure that "demand drops to meet supply." Schweeet. And the mainstream media all fell for it - about the only anti-war sentiment they did report was the oil companies saying they thought the war was a bad idea. Need a bit more profit? Just arrange for "the insurgents" to blow up a pipeline again and tell the press that you always thought the war was a bad idea.

In fact, despite the supposed Iraqi government, ukases put in place by Bremer mean that the Bush administration is in control of carving up Iraq's oilfields and insisting they be sold to US oil companies. Those ukases by Bremer are totally illegal under international law.

They're constructing fourteen permanently military bases in Iraq which would come in very handy if they should want to invade one of the surrounding oil-rich countries. Not that such a thought would ever cross their minds.

They're constructing the largest US Embassy in the world there. Iraq has no need of an embassy that large. Maybe if they were to invade all the other oil-rich countries in the area they're need something that size as to hold the imperial government of that region. Not that such a thought would ever cross their minds.

Of course, the war is taking a toll in blood and treasure. But the blood comes from poor people who enlisted because it was the only job they could find or because they hoped it would pay for an education. And thanks to Bush's tax cuts for the obscenely rich, and consequent effective tax increases on all but the obscenely rich (increases in state taxes to offset the reduction in federal grants), the money is coming out of the pockets of the poor, the middle class, and the lower-upper class but not the pockets of Bush's obscenely rich cronies.

Had the Bush administration listened to the people in the State Department and elsewhere things might have gone smoothly. No looting. No destruction of all the unguarded ministries. No destruction of the infrastructure after the initial fighting, so Iraqis would still have running water, working sewage systems and electricity. Above all, no hatred of the US by Iraqis and no cycle of violence. By now it could all have gone so smoothly that the US would have pulled out months ago. In fact, by international law, once order had been restored and a sovereign Iraqi government was in full control, the US would have been legally obligated to pull out but until order has been restored they are legally obligated to stay and fix things.

Had this crowd not been so "incompetent" the US would now be completely out of Iraq and none of those money-making opportunies for Bush's obscenely rich cronies would exist. Follow the fucking money.

The Economy

The economy is going down the shitter so hard and so fast it must be causing a sonic boom down at the sewerage works. Most people assume it is just a side-effect of Bush being so "incompetent" that he wants to reward his rich cronies no matter what happens to the economy (even though his father criticised Reagan's similar policies of "trickle down economics" as being "voodoo economics." But, in fact, giving the obscenely rich those massive tax cuts is merely a way of achieving an even bigger theft from the poor to give to the rich.

This is a standard ploy of those obscenely rich bastards known as international bankers. First they allow the economy to boom so the working class invest in shares and buying larger homes. Then they completely fuck the economy so that people have to sell those shares for pennies on the dollar and can't afford mortgage payments so have their homes reclaimed. Then all that wealth can be hoovered up by the obscenely rich.

BTW, just because the prices on every company's shares plummet it doesn't mean that the companies have no intrinsic value, although that value cannot be realized until the economy recovers. It's just that the people who bought shares when they were $10 each no longer have jobs and so the only way they can afford to eat is to sell the shares for whatever paltry sum they get. The price of goods and services is established by what we're willing to pay. One day you can afford to pay $1,000,000 for a house; the next day you have to sell it for $100 just to eat - but it's the same house, it's just that your income has plummeted. All the hard-earned work you put into paying your mortgage has now been traded for enough money to buy a week's food. Everyone is in the same situation, so it really doesn't matter if everyone agrees that a house like yours is worth $1,000,000, or $100 or $100,000,000 zorkmids. One day you planned on selling your $1,000,000 house so you could buy a $1,000,000 yacht. The next day you can only get $100 for your house but the guy selling the yacht can only get $100 so it all balances out.

Money is a "token trade economy" which means that instead of a farmer having to cart around a truckload of pigs when he wants to buy a car he sells the pigs for money and uses the money to buy the car. It's more convenient that way: the person he wants to buy the car from probably couldn't use a truckload of pigs and would have to find somebody to barter the pigs with for something he wants. And it's real pain asking somebody if they can break a pig because you don't have anything smaller. So these figures aren't real in any absolute sense, only in the relative sense of what everyone agrees they should be. The figures that have meaning are what your weekly wage is compared to your weekly living costs.

A house is $1,000,000, my weekly pay is $10,000, and my weekly shopping is $100? That's cool. A house is $100, my weekly pay is $10 and my weekly shopping is $0.10? That's also cool. As long as everyone is in the same system and no jobs are lost, the two situations are effectively no different. But when economies collapse jobs are lost for the duration of the collapse and your weekly pay is not $10 but zero. See the Charles Dickens character "Mr Micawber" for an excellent summary.

Well, everyone would be in the same boat it would if it weren't for the obscenely rich. During the boom times they encouraged you to spend your hard-earned cash on property and shares instead of putting it in the bank. So when the bust comes you have a house worth $100 and shares that are barely worth the paper they're printed on. But the obscenely rich have lots of money in the bank and they can afford to buy the property and shares. When the boom times return the house they bought from you for $100 is once more worth $1,000,000. By manipulating cycles of bust and boom they transfer $999,900 from your pocket to theirs. When the boom comes they have a house worth $1,000,000 and you once had $100 from them (long since spent upon food). So if you want somewhere to live and something to eat you'll have to work for a pittance until you drop dead - no retirement for you and that's how the obscenely rich want it.

When share traders "pump the market" in this way it is illegal and they face prison if caught and convicted (conviction is far less likely if your surname is "Bush"). When governments (rather, the powers behind them) pump the economy then they're either hailed as geniuses or incompetents. Bush is not incompetent, he's pumping the economy down just like he was instructed to. Follow the fucking money.

Iraq and the Economy

But there is another advantage to flushing the economy right now. The war in Iraq is grinding the army down. They're being killed by bullet and bomb. They're being given death sentences of rapidly-developing cancers because of the fallout from Depleted Uranium munitions. They're being stressed to breaking point. Recruitment is way down, with even gigantic recruiting bonuses not being enough to make up the numbers. Re-instating the draft would be political suicide because it would hit a very broad cross-section of society. The only people who could be certain of evading a draft would be the friends and relatives of the obscenely rich, which is how the members of this administration dodged the draft in Viet Nam (chickenhawks, the lot of them).

The draft isn't an option. When it's only those in poverty enlisting for the money and you don't have to enlist you're less likely to be concerned because it doesn't affect you. When there's a draft then unless your name is Bush, Cheney, Ashcroft, or the like, then it could be you that gets drafted tomorrow. The elections after a draft would show such a massive swing to the Democrats that not even all the vote-stealing tricks used in the last two presidential elections could swing the result without a civil rebellion occurring.

The opinion polls of registered voters said 95% would vote Democrat, and the exit polls showed that 95% voted Democrat, but the Republicans carried the elections with 51% of the vote. It was obviously another 'moral values' thing. Or maybe those shy Republicans not wanting to admit they were going to vote Republican. And nobody would vote against the Republicans for reinstating the draft in this noble war on Terra because everybody agrees it's worth the sacrifice to honour those who have died in Iraq by sending more to die in Iraq.

Even the dictator of a Banana Republic would be ashamed of vote-stealing that blatant and even the oppressed citizens of a Banana Republic would rise up in arms. Then again, Bush is well on his way to becoming a dictator and the US is well on its way to becoming a Banana Republic, so if the Republicans get desperate enough they'll try it. But if they do need to rig the vote that blatantly it won't be because of reinstating the draft. That's one reason they won't have to rig the vote because it isn't going to happen.

When the economy collapses, which it will very soon, people will be queueing around the block at the merest possibility of getting a part-time job licking toilet bowls clean at McDonalds. They will be desperate for any job, no matter how lowly-paid, no matter how degrading, no matter what the labour conditions, just so they can "put food on their family." Oh, and look - there's the US Military desperate for warm bodies that it can turn into cold bodies to sustain Bush's plunder of Iraq. You can bet the recruiting bonuses won't be so high then. When the choice is you and your family dying of starvation now, or you hoping there's a small chance of surviving a term in Iraq so you can all be fed for another year, you're going to enlist.

It's a no-brainer. Maybe by the time you get killed in Iraq the economy will have recovered enough that your wife can get a job that pays a pittance and your children can work in coal mines for a few extra pennies. When the hunger pangs hit, you're not going to say "I'd rather that I, my wife, and my children all starve to death than enlist to serve in this illegal war to make Bush's cronies rich." Nope, you're going to be down at the recruiting office joining the long line to sign up.

The volunteer military is made up overwhelmingly of the poor who are desperate for a job or who hope it will pay for an education so they can lift themselves out of poverty. Bush desperately needs more people in the military. Due to his "incompetence" there will soon be a lot more poor people desperate for a job. Follow the fucking money.

Katrina

And you thought that the underfunding of flood defenses was yet more Bush administration "incompetence" while siphoning money to their obscenely rich cronies either directly in tax breaks or indirectly in munitions/reconstruction contracts.

The obscenely rich people flew out of New Orleans in their own private planes. The rich could afford plane tickets with an airline. The moderately rich could afford to fill their gas tanks and drive to safety. The ones who had no choice but to stay were the poor (who are disproportionately black). They're going to be refugees looking for some way to survive for months, if not years. There are already far more people seeking even the crappiest of jobs in the areas they have fled to that they don't stand a chance. Bush is constantly cutting funding for any sort of welfare. What are these people going to do? That's right, they're going to enlist because that might keep their family fed for a few months before they get killed.

Bush couldn't plan for a hurricane to hit New Orleans, but by underfunding disaster prevention measures across the nation he increased his chances of striking it lucky sooner rather than later. He would have siphoned that money off anyway, but if anyone in the administration realized that siphoning the money to pay Halliburton's outrageous no-bid contracts would increase the chances of a city's worth of poor people enlisting out of desperation, they would have chuckled at the thought.

The Bush administration so "incompetent" that it ignored all the warnings from FEMA about the disaster that was likely to happen? Follow the fucking money.

Conclusion

Those are just a few of the more egregious examples of this administration's greed and inhumanity. There are many others. But you remain unconvinced because you've heard the adage:

Never attribute to malice that which can be attributed to stupidity.

That applies to ordinary, decent, honorable human beings who possess a conscience. It does not apply to this administration. The second law from Bart (of bartcop):

Any time a person or entity makes a "mistake" that puts extra money in their pocket, expect them to make that "mistake" again and again and again.

Incompetence? If it was something that happened only occasionally it wouldn't be incompetence but misjudgement. If it was something that happened all the time but resulted in them losing money it definitely would be incompetence. If it was something that happened all the time and sometimes they made money and sometimes they lost money and overall they broke even it would probably be incompence. The more the winnings outweigh the losses then the less likely it is the result of incompetence.

Every so-called piece of "incompetence" displayed by this administration has resulted in money going into their pockets and/or the pockets of their obscenely rich cronies. Follow the fucking money.

Addendum Tuesday, September 06, 2005

Some typos and grammatical errors (I'm sure there are more) corrected. Some expansions and clarifications added which do not invalidate the initial post, merely avoid the possibility of people quibbling about detail or logic (for example, the Madrid fire lasted only 17 hours rather than the full day my increasingly-faulty memory told me). Also added stuff about Osama's fiendishly-clever invention of "homeopathic fire" (which is vaguely amusing).

And now a significant addition:

N'awleans World

There is so much about Amerikkka I know little of. I have since read that, because there was gambling allowed on Mississipi riverboats, investors had their greedy eyes on turning New Orleans into another Las Vegas. Big profits to be made. However, they'd have to find some way of moving out the poor people and taking over their property so they could turn N'awleans into a clone of Vegas. If there were beggars in the streets then Republican moralists like Bill Bennett (who made money preaching moral values) might be tempted to throw a dime in a beggar's cup while walking to the casino where he'd blow millions of dollars gambling. Of course, the casinos want every dime they can get, so the foolhardy rich must not be allowed to encounter the poor at any time.

Amongst the poor in New Orleans were great musicians. A few were fortunate enough to become famous and rich, but they were lucky. Among the poor in New Orleans were those who were master chefs in the art of Cajun cuisine. The music and the cuisine were as much a part of the attraction of New Orleans as the gambling. People visited to listen and eat, and some of those people also gambled on the riverboats. The riverboat operators made a lot of money from the gambling and the poor made a little money from the music and cuisine. The music and cuisine was the heart and soul of New Orleans and the gambling was a sideshow. But the gambling sideshow was more profitable than the main event.

And so it was to the advantage of the casino operators to rip the heart and soul out of New Orleans because people would still come to gamble on those "olde authentice rivere boatse." New Orleans would suffer a loss. The former inhabitants of New Orleans would suffer a loss. American culture would suffer a loss. But the casino operators would make a big profit and that's all that counts.

The damage wreaked by Katrina will give the casino operators what they want. It will be months before most of New Orleans is habitable again. The poor, who contributed the most to its culture will have to settle elsewhere and be unable to afford to return or will have to enlist in the military just to survive (for a few months before an IED gets them). Most of them will never be able to return. The heart and soul of New Orleans has been ripped out of its bloody chest and scattered to the winds, never to return. Which means a lot of vacant property that can be turned into casinos, and strip malls, and Churches of Elvis and similar tasteless (but profitable) crap. You think Bush underfunded flood defenses because he was incompetent? Think again. Follow the fucking money (if this is difficult for you, do a google search onthe keywords "Abramoff", "Delay", "Casino" and "Indian") and see what turns up.

Here is my vision for the future New Orleans It will be a theme park run by Disney called "N'awleansworld."

It will feature "authentic" Cajun cuisine that tastes little like the real thing. I suspect McDonalds will get the franchise on that so expect to see "McGumbo" (which will taste good but nothing like the real thing and will be about as nutritious as rat poison), and "McJambalaya" (which will taste good but nothing like the real thing and will be about as nutritious as rat poison) and McShrimpCreole (which will taste good but nothing like the real thing and will be about as nutritious as rat poison), etc.

It will have "theme bars" that play sanitized crap that bears as much relation to the real thing as elevator muzak[turdmark] bears to music. It will sound vaguely similar but will contain nothing whatsoever that stirs the soul with feelings of splendour or which queries in any way the status quo (particularly that bit of the status quo amongst inbred, bigoted retards in the southern states that thinks "niggers should still be slaves").

It will have animatronic[turdmark] "people of colour" scattered around to give you that "good ole N'awleansworld history." Like Cigar Store Indians ought to sort of vaguely remind you of your history (without bringing to mind the appalling genocide) these ought to sort of vaguely remind you of your history without reminding you that blacks are still discriminated against in the south but we pretend it's because they're "lazy welfare queens." These animatronic[turdmark] puppets will say things like "Yes, massa boss, us niggers can be house niggers if'n our skins is white enough like Colon Powell but if'n our skin is deep black then we are evil shirkers who must be horswhipped four times a day. Now please try some of this delicious McGumbo before you whip me."

You want to call me too cynical? Google for the terms "nixon" and "southern strategy". Fucking evil racist fucking bastard, exceeded in evilness by George HW Bush who was, in turn, exceeded in evilness by George Wanker Bush. Follow the fucking money.